Chapter 9
The walk was slow and hard. Taff forced tired muscles to move, legs to carry him through the wooded lands. The wound in his belly had ceased its bleeding, and was beginning to heal, but still hurt fiercely. His chain mail armor was dented, arrows protruded from it, but other than that it was fine.
"What's happening?" he asked the spirit that accompanied him.
"The humans who attacked Brill used weapons enchanted with a special essence. Any cut by such a blade will slowly degenerate into a rampaging monster."
Taff scratched the fur of his muscular stomach. "Even me?"
"I'm sorry son," the mother wept.
"Then we'd better hurry. How do I stop it?"
"Deep in the Scarlet Monastery, there is the Orb of Ichor, an ancient and powerful artifact. It provides the magical force behind the enchantment. Destroy it, and you may well save Brill in time."
Taff looked at the Scarlet Crusader stronghold; the Scarlet Monastery. "Sure," he grunted. "No problem."
---
Aloos caught the swinging staff and yanked it from Eck's grasp. He thrust the shaft forward, knocking out one of the Forsaken's knees back.
"What da fuck ye doin mon?" the troll demanded.
Eck slowly rose, the joints of his knee popping into place. The sound made the troll cringe. Having had bones dislocated on the battlefield, he was aware of how painful it could be. For the Forsaken to no so much as groan meant something was gravely wrong, not just with his body, but with his mind.
When the Forsaken leapt, the troll swung the staff, knocking it into a table. Wood broke beneath his weight.
"Please. Eck if dere anything left of you in dere, stop. Don't make me do dis."
The undead rose, scurrying along the ground: using its hands and arms as a second pair of feet and legs. Aloos lifted the staff high in the air and brought it down, impaling through the Forsaken's stomach and driving the shaft into the floor beneath. And yet still he struggled to hurt the troll.
"Fuck Eck," Aloos groaned. He hurried out of the room, locking the door behind him.
The troll darted down the stairs into the living room. "Aloos?" asked Elizabeth Eck.
"Something fucked wit Jon mon. Keep im here," he breathed, bursting out of the front door.
Elizabeth sat there, confused, until Aloos again charged inside. He pushed against the door as something pounded on it from the other side.
"Now what?" she asked.
"Da whole fucking town as gone ta hell."
---
The old saying, "10 soldiers wisely led can beat a hundred without a head," was something any veteran warrior, regardless of race, knew to be true. The Scarlet Crusaders had numbers, but that was mostly it. Save for their generals, the majority of their armor was poorly crafted, with holes that left vital areas of their form bare. Weapons were hastily mass produced and rarely kept at top performance. Strategy was rarely employed. The Scarlets generally preferred overwhelming their enemy and unrestricted slaughters.
By contrast, the tauren called Taff Wolfhood was smart, strategic, and careful. He wore chain mail armor that had been tailored perfectly to his form, and made an effort to repair it should it fall to harm. His mace and shield had been cast from liquid metal, rather than welded pieces, which gave them almost unbreakable strength. Further, the shaman had breathed the power of the spirits into his weapons.
As Taff stepped onto the pathway to the Monastery, a swarm of the zealots blocked his way. With a deep voice, he shouted in common, "I come for Orb of Ichor."
The intensity of his voice and sight of the battle worn bull made the Scarlets tremble. Taff moved a hand behind his back and began to summon the spirits. Lightening cackled in his palm.
"Give me the Orb, and no blood is spilled."
One of the Scarlets, his well kept armor signaling him as one of high rank, charged forward, carrying his sword over his head. Taff swung his maul low and into the human's stomach. As the Scarlet recoiled, the tauren crushed his mace down on his opponent's head. The helm broke like tissue paper, and the human passed from the world.
"Leave!" roared the tauren. But the humans would not listen to reason. In a foolish charge, they all attacked. Taff lifted his hand, the one he'd gathered the electrical charge in. The lightening suddenly lanced out and burned through the nearest human's chest. The burning power burst out the Scarlet's back and into another, then another.
As the three bodies fell, two more pressed forward. Taff lifted his shield as a pair of sword crashed down. He swung his maul in a sweeping arc, knocking the Scarlets way as if they were weightless.
More humans were coming, the grey bull could hear the clanking of their armor echoing through the halls of the Monastery. In the moment of peace, the calm before the storm, he called on the spirits to materialize in this realm. They came forth in the form of a totem that burst from the ground. It burned, seethed, with the fury of the ancestors, flaming magic erupting from it and attacking the humans as they came.
---
"Help me," Aloos ordered. Elizabeth quickly aided in pushing a dresser in front of the front door. It sounded as if a thousand fists were pounding on the wood, and it was doubtful the two survivors would be safe for long.
"What's happening?" the woman asked.
Before Aloos could speak, there was the sound of breaking glass from up the stairs, followed by the crashing of wood. Next, a flood of the raving undead swarmed down the stairs.
"Get into da basement," the troll shouted, shoving the Forsaken away. He pushed her down into the cellar, and closed the door behind her. Drawing both daggers from his belt, he turned to face the ravenous swarm of what were once his comrades.
---
The walls of the Scarlet Monastary were strewn with corpses. How these humans could have such little value for life was beyond Taff, as he was forced to kill one after the other, and still they charged. The tauren had only seen such recklessness in his battles with the Scourge.
Suddenly, a group of ten strong came bursting out of the Monastery's library. Taff swung, the hard tip of maul breaking the chest plate of a zealot. Another drove his sword forward, and the tauren barely had time to lift his shield to block.
When heard footsteps behind him, he cursed. If the Scarlets had somehow surrounded him, he'd be doomed to die in these blasphemous halls.
And yet a ball of flaming magic skimmed just past the bull's shoulder, so close it seared his fur, and crashed into one of the zealot's chest. Another fiery blast incinerated a human, his armor and skin melting off his bones. Taff did not know how the duo of elves had found him, nor did her care why. "Attack them, we must save Brill," he roared, swinging his mace into a Scarlet's head.
When the push at last failed, and the creatures of the Horde were permitted a moments breath, Lunn demanded to know what happened.
"There is an artifact in these halls," the bull explained. "One that corrupts us all. We must find it and destroy it."
"We've moved through the west wing, you came through the east?" the night elf asked.
The bull gave a weak nod.
"I worked here during the Third War," the blood elf spoke up. "High Inquisitor Whitemane's quarters are this way. Anything of value would be there."
Because most all of the soldiers had already been slain, the trio moved quickly through the library and up a long tower. There they found the Crusader elite, but the humans quickly fell by the three's respective magics.
The tauren lifted a heavy hoof and crashed down the door. The blood elf, Shaak, swirled burning arcane into his grip and filled the room with it, smothering the inhabitants in a flaming embrace.